For a Better World to Live in
by RowenaR
Summary: It's been five years since Eliot's team split up when the world changed for the worse. He's still not looking for a new one. #3: Evan Lorne followed a call from Eliot Spencer. He's not sure if it was such a good idea, after all.
1. For a Better World to Live in

**Author:** RowenaR

**Rating:** K+

**Category:** gen

**Disclaimer:** Leverage and Stargate, not mine, knew what I'd do with it if were, etc. etc.

**Summary: **It's been five years since Eliot's team split up when the world changed for the worse. He's still not looking for a new one.**  
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**A/N: **Holiday Fic Request Meme. So. Anyone remember that I said I don't read apocafic when I published the _Pandora's Box_ stories that _were_ apocafic? Well. I did it again. Or I guess I did... anyway, the first of three this is *yoda Let's see how it works.

Anyway, as always: Not a native speaker, so please excuse any weird grammatical constructions, run-ons and typos. Feedback will earn you a cookie, flames will roast my marshmellows.

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><p><strong>For a Better World to Live in<strong>

„_Und du rufst in die Nacht  
>Und du flehst um Wundermacht<br>Um 'ne bessere Welt zum Leben  
>Doch es wird keine andere geben."<em>

_Witt / Heppner, „Die Flut"_

It's been five years today. They broke up as a team five years ago because the ground was getting too hot. Riots in the big cities were getting stronger by the day and spreading into the rest of the country. Government answered with tightening the net and they'd have been caught if they'd stayed together. Splitting up was the most sensible thing to do. Still hurts like hell.

Been hurting like this for five years so he got used to it, somehow. He got used to solo ops again pretty fast. He even got used to those solo ops not being about profit but about staying alive. He got used to being self-reliant again and finally giving up trusting people or asking for help… _expecting_ help _without_ asking for it.

But then came the day when he'd been caught back out in the Sahara, after everything having gone wrong that _could_ have gone wrong, nearly dead from heat and dehydration and a helicopter had come swooping down like a mirage. He resists shaking his head. A rogue heli crew out here in the desert. He's still not quite sure if he hadn't been imagining that.

He still can't believe that they haven't yet killed him, either. He'd figured they couldn't be one of those lose Al Qaeda remnants left over from an Israeli offensive against every element in the Arab world that could threaten them because if they'd been that, he'd be a rotting carcass in the sand now. And they probably wouldn't speak English that sounds very much as if they're from various parts of the good old US of A.

Took him another couple minutes or maybe days of just lying here in the tent they put him to wake up in after passing out onboard the heli before he realized there's someone sitting next to the cot they put him on.

It's a guy, mid-thirties, early forties, hard to tell with the deep tan and the lines in his face that could be age or sun exposure. There's a web of very prominent scars across the right side of his jaw and similar scars on his right hand. He's clad in something that looks like faded fatigues. Faded enough that it's impossible to discern the camouflage pattern and there are no other markings, not even a name tag, as far as he can see. He takes care not to move so as to give the man no clue that he's away and so far it seems to…

"You can give up trying to pretend you're still out cold now, buddy." What… "Figured I should give you a fair chance to assess your surroundings before I started talking to you." Slowly, he sits up and register that it's indeed a tent he's sitting in. It's relatively light inside and the heat is slightly less oppressive than outside. His eyes dart over to the tent flap that's open. There are no restraints on him. He blinks.

"In case you've been wondering: no, you're not a prisoner. You're our guest, for the time being." A… guest. Uh-huh. "It would be nice, though, to know your name, Mr…"

The guy looks questioningly at him and for a moment he debates whether to give him an alias but further inventory of the tent let him see a heavily encased military grade laptop and what looks like a miniature satellite dish. They'd probably be able to expose the alias in a second, even out here in the desert. He resists the temptation to clear his throat. "Eliot Spencer." The guy makes no show of recognition, even though they probably checked available information on him with that equipment over there. He also thinks it's just fair that he asks, "And yours?"

The soldier – as of now he's pretty sure that guy next to his cot is or was a soldier, very distinctive stance and diction and looks and all that – licks his lips. Then, "Fortune Cookie." What? A shrug. "It's an in joke."

Or a call sign. There _is_ a heli parked out there somewhere, if he didn't hallucinate it. He frowns. "Figured as much." Also, if he's a guest and told them his real name, he can very well expect his host do to the same. And if that's not his host but his jailor after all, he's got nothing to lose, anyway. So he adds, "Got a real name, too?"

There's a look of something strange in Cookie guy's face and he says, "Gave up using it when I gave up everything that made me who I was."

A former soldier, then. And the faint look of… regret and loss that crossed Cookie guy's face seemed genuine enough that he gives him the benefit of a doubt and still doesn't peg him as a bad guy. However, "I gave you mine."

Cookie guy raises an eyebrow. "How do I know it's the real one?"

He's pretty sure Cookie guy and whoever is with him – since this could _never_ be the work of a one man army – know that already, so all he says is, "You'll just have to trust me."

After a second of seeming to think about it, Cookie guy shrugs and says, "Fair enough." Then he gets up and tosses him a bottle of water. "Come on, get up. I'm sure you're curious, Mr. Spencer."

Curious about what, he wants to ask but knows it's futile. He _is_ curious about this tent and Cookie guy and the question what an American ex-soldier is doing so far away from home. Home where soldiers are used against the people. Have been used for four years now, ever since the government chose to curb the rioting not by reacting to the people's demands but tightening the grip around the people. He gets up from his cot and takes a tentative sip from the non-descript water bottle Cookie guy threw at him. Tastes normal, if a bit stale.

"It's drinkable, Mr. Spencer. We just… organized ourselves a new shipment of charcoal tablets." Organized, huh, he thinks as they exit the tent to stab back into the blazing heat of a Sahara afternoon, judging by the sun.

He takes a quick look around. They're in an oasis. The palm trees around them and the pond only a few steps away from them are dead giveaways. It's quiet here, as if the world weren't covered by a blanked of death and destruction. It seems surreal.

He raises his eyebrows at Cookie guy. "We?"

The ex-soldier shrugs. "I'm not a one man army, Mr. Spencer." Oh really. "Most of the team is sleeping currently. We've got a doctor who saw to you when you were unconscious during the last two days. A communications specialist, of course, a two man logistics team…"

"And a helicopter crew." He half expects the man to deny the implication that somewhere around here a heli must be standing around. Which he still hasn't seen, come to think of it. Weird.

But then the guy grimaces and nods. "That, too. Not… a full one, though." There's a lengthy pause in the man's speech and he almost assumes Cookie guy won't elaborate but then he adds, in a strangely strained voice, "Lost our door gunner 'bout three months back, though."

It's just that and for a moment, Cookie guy seems to be strangely distant, as if he's somewhere else in his mind. Back to where they lost the door gunner? Looking at Cookie guy in the afternoon heat, not even breaking a sweat – he wonders how _long_ he's been sitting out here – he debates whether to ask how it happened or not but in the end he decides to ask a far more important question. "So what are you _doing_ out here?"

There's a little motion going through Cookie guy's body. Not a jerk, just a little… _twitch_ and he's back to that businesslike friendliness he displayed before the door gunner put him out of it. "Hiding." Wow, that's really elaborate… "But I guess that wasn't your question, was it?" No. "Let's just say that we… decided to leave government service a while ago and are more… freelance today."

So not much different from what he used to do, after he liberated Croatia and came home to find the girl he wanted to marry had moved on from him. "Why here?"

That makes Cookie guy grimace again. "Because we're not welcome anymore across the Big Pond." That guy really likes to talk in mysteries and… "Remember when the government decided to use military force against the protesters?" Oh. Well. He nods. "We all swore an oath to protect those people. Not to shoot at them." Okay, so that explains why they left military service but not why they're hanging around an oasis in the Sahara desert. "Plus we were part of a secret government facility. People like us… we knew too much to be released from service with a lukewarm handshake and non-existent G.I. Bill benefits."

That explains… a lot, actually. He can't help saying, "So you ran away?" though.

Cookie guy doesn't give him the satisfaction for a real reaction. Just a shrug. "Maybe. But even if we did, we brought along a bit of interesting… technology. After all, we wanted to keep protecting good people instead of shooting them and that's what we're doing here." Interesting technology, huh? Is that why he can't see a heli, no matter how hard he looks around?

"Sounds awfully much like the A-Team." Or his own team, come to think of it. Which he just doesn't want to do. Not now. Not ever.

There's a grin from Cookie guy now who doesn't look a bit like Hannibal Smith. Still seems to have something of a Hannibal wave going on, under the seemingly relaxed attitude. "Guess it does, huh? Anyway… like I said, we're down a door gunner. Interested in working with a team again, Mr. Spencer?"

_Fuck_.

That came unexpectedly. Like a punch in the gut and it doesn't stop hurting. The implications of what Cookie guy just said… he'd like to say it's the desert heat that just left him reeling but that would be a lie. "You didn't think we wouldn't put the gear you saw back in our main tent to good use, did you?"

Of course he didn't. Like he said, he knew they probably checked out anything they could find on him but he never thought they'd find _so much_. He almost wonders… he almost wonders how much how they found him had been coincidence. If it was a coincidence _at all_. Ever since breaking up the team, he thought nothing could ever fuck him up like that but Cookie guy's revelations… they did him in good. He swallows. "Your door gunner… how did he die?"

Cookie guy doesn't wince. But there's that… _twitch_ again. Then he says, his voice strangely low and almost broken, "We don't know if she died. We were helping a couple Bedouins against a band of what we think were Mauritanian raiders that had been harassing them and she…" For a moment, the pain in Cookie guy's eyes mirrors his own when he thinks about his team and the fact that he never heard of them again after breaking it up. Then the eyes blank over, just like his own. "It's not important what happened. We left camp with her at the gun and we came back without her. And we need someone to fill her place now. Interested?"

No, he's not. All he's interested in is being on his way again. It's easier to be alone. A lot less hard to find, more escape routes, a lot less heartbreak. Easier. "I don't think so, no."

He doesn't know what Cookie guy was about to say because they're interrupted by a woman coming running towards them. As far as he can see, she looks Latin American and… and she's tossing Cookie guy a helmet. "Sparks just got a radio transmission from those Bedouins from three months ago. The raiders are back and they need our help. Let's get going, flyboy."

Cookie guy catches it with surprising ease, rolling his eyes. "No one ever told you you don't interrupt superior officers talking, Sergeant?"

The Latina grins. "No, sir. Now get your ass into the Hawk and bring pretty boy there. We need someone at the guns for this."

A shrug now from Cookie, while the Latina runs towards the edge of the oasis although he wonders why. Still no heli. "You heard the lady, Spencer. And you owe us."

He'd like to tell the guy that the hell he owes them but he knows the man is right. He frowns. "Just this one mission and we're even."

Cookie guy seems to contemplate that for a moment. Then, "Deal. Now come on, no one keeps Dusty Mehra waiting for long without serious repercussions." For a moment he wonders if they're all insane but then the guy pulls something from his pocket and aims it into the air in front of him… _holy shit_. There, after a weird shimmering in the air, a Black Hawk just materialized. He blinks.

"I told you we… liberated a few pieces of interesting technology." He nods. With a stab, he realizes that Hardison would have a heart attack of geeky happiness from this and Parker have stolen the remote control from Cookie guy's hands faster than anyone could look and Sophie would charm them all into giving them the Black Hawk as a farewell gift and Nate would know what to do with that beauty. Oh God, how he _misses_ them. "Mr. Spencer?"

He doesn't shake it off, just grunts and then adds, "Eliot," before starting to jog towards the Black Hawk. When he climbs into it, he finds his place as easily as he did last time he boarded one of those. There's no helmet but another guy – glasses, wild hair – hands him a headset and says something in a thick accent that he doesn't get because the Latina – Dusty Mehra, he reminds himself – in the front seat just put the rotors to use.

What he does get, though, is that their pilot claps him onto the back before entering the cockpit and the words, "By the way, it's Evan Lorne. But I still prefer Fortune Cookie when we're in the air."

Right, he thinks, as he tries to familiarize himself with the good old M240H machine gun, just one mission. He'll go with them on one mission and then he'll ask them to drop him off somewhere in the desert where he won't get lost again. And then he'll work on that whole not letting himself being roped into team work when he just got used to solo missions thing again. Didn't work so well both times he tried it now. But there will be a day when he will get it right. He just has to.

"And you're shouting into the night

You're begging for some wonder power

For a better world to live in

But there won't be one."

Witt / Heppner, "The Flood"


	2. With the Left Over You

Yay, part two of the crossover! And no, no 'verse name for it. As you all know, if you name something, you can't kill it and you have to _keep_ it. I have enough 'verses as it is. I ain't keeping this one. Seriously, I won't. Not... until I'm done with all the other 'verses in the queue. At least. Yes.

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><p><strong>With The Left Over You<strong>

_"Where do you go, with your broken heart in tow?  
>What do you do, with the left over you?<br>And how do you know when it´s time to let go?  
>Where does the good go?<br>Where does the good go?"_

_Tegan & Sara, "Where Does The Good Go"_

Well. Back in the good old US of A. Who would have thought. After roughly eight months out in the Sahara desert, even rundown Montezuma in the middle of Iowa nowhere seems to be Heaven on Earth. Okay, so not having to walk out into the biting cold each morning to get his share of water and gas for the day would be nice but it definitely beats having to shake sand from your sleeping bag and shaking your boots to get rid of any deadly critters in them.

It's been two weeks since he's been back and he's still amazed at how much the US is still the US. Okay, minus Hawaii, Alaska, New Mexico and Florida. Alright, and Texas as well. But after what went down before he hightailed it out of here on the next flight to Africa, he'd have expected to see the nation break up in a lot more pieces but apparently, the now centralized government had enough hold on the majority of the states to keep them together in an iron grip. It's something he doesn't like to think about.

However, he still had to go back. He just _had_ to. There had been some talk on underground channels that there was this hacker who was giving the government a lot of trouble and people kept saying he's doing it for some underground resistance network called Takeover. Which he once knew to be a synonym to... leverage. For half an eternity he'd tried to forget his team, for their sake and his but the moment he heard about this hacker, he'd known - _hoped_ - it would be Hardison. So he'd left the team of former soldiers and government employees and contractors he'd been roaming the desert with and made his way back to the US.

Lorne hadn't been exactly overjoyed - after all, they really needed a door gunner - but he'd understood, or at least that was what he'd claimed. He'd tried to tell himself that he didn't care what Lorne and the rest of the team thought but he'd come to like them, almost against his will, and he knew he was going to miss them.

That little Czech guy they all just called Sparks, Mehra who often gave him the impression that she was running the show instead of Lorne, Lorne who gave Mehra the impression she was running the show instead of him just so he wouldn't have to butt heads with her too often and who handed him a slip of paper with the words "If you're ever in trouble again and need a bit of close air support… try calling this number." as a parting gift, Keller the doc who looked too young to take care of them with basically nothing... damn. He actually misses them. Just like he still misses his old team. He should have never joined up with either of them.

Anyway. Not important now. Now it's important that he tries to get in contact with Takeover reps and finds out who's the hacker making the government wussies shit their pants. No better place in the world than this godforsaken hellhole for that. It was abandoned by the locals a couple years back and now it's one of many anonymous hideouts for all sorts of people not keen on getting in contact with government authorities. It's a passing joint where no one ever stays longer than a few weeks and he just arrived three days ago. So he's still got some time to spare before anyone notices him.

Alright. That's bullshit. Someone already _did_ notice him. The girl who just came out of the house they threw him out of. She's rather short, walks with a slight limp and wears her reddish hair in such a neat bun every day that he's almost sure she used to be a soldier, too. She'd seen him getting thrown out five days ago and had given him a hint where to go looking for a place to crash and stow your gear safely away. Since then they'd encountered each other at rations call and inside the city… Once he even ran into her when he was trying to scout exit routes in case the local contingent of state troopers decided they needed to stock up on booze, drugs and weapons again and stage a raid into the city.

He goes back to cleaning his bag and a few other items of travelling gear. That doesn't stop him from continuing to think of her, though. She never told him her name, just told him to call her Red like everyone else did. For some reason… she reminds him of Lorne. Something in her attitude or the way she keeps to herself and… "Hey."

Well. He doesn't look up from his cleaning. But he answers her. "Hey." He knows she wouldn't go away anyway.

There's no answer from her for a couple of minutes but he keeps scrubbing away. She'll say her piece, regardless if he appears interested in it or not, that much he learned in the few days he got to know her. She seems to be rather like Parker in that. It's a thought he doesn't want to continue.

She saves him from it eventually, anyway. "So… just wanted to tell you… there's going to be a vacancy at my place soon."

He looks up again. Red's leaning against pillar next to the bathtub someone put outside as the neighborhood's version of a Laundromat. Her hands are in her pockets and in the thin winter sunlight, her eyes look cold. Or maybe guarded, just like Lorne and his crew used to look so often. As she notices his raised eyebrows, she adds, "I'll be gone by nightfall. Need to keep moving."

It's not that it really surprises him. Whenever he'd seen her, she'd tried to look relaxed or at least calm but her body had always betrayed a certain amount of nervous energy. As if she couldn't bear to stay too long in one place. Just like Parker. He gets back to scrubbing his pack. Then a question slowly forms in his mind and he stops. "Why tell me of all people?"

Red shrugs. "You seemed to be a decent guy." Then there's... a twinkle in her eyes. Or maybe just the sun reflecting from an odd angle. "Are you? Decent, I mean."

He decides not to take the probable innuendo. "Used to be." At her questioning glance, he adds, "Hard to be decent when you're fighting for survival."

At that, a weird look of understanding crosses her face. Then... she sits down on the edge of the bathtub, next to him. "You weren't always on your own, were you?"

Why would she ask that, he wonders and is tempted to scowl at her and take his stuff to clean it elsewhere. But she offered to get him into the place she was staying at. It seemed a hell of a lot more decent that where he's staying at now. He grunts. "No, I wasn't. What about you?"

She's silent and he wonders if she'll cheat him and not reciprocate his generous sharing of information. It lasts for about another minute. "No, me neither." Then a pained little expression crosses her face. "Tell you a secret?" Huh? "I hate working solo."

That came... out of the blue, really. But... he's got nothing better to do than cleaning and he figures he should just play along. "Why?"

Instead of an answer, she squints into the sun for a moment. Then a shrug. "Never got used to it. Used to be a Marine on a top secret base." What, _another_ soldier doing hinky stuff? Is there something about him that attracts them like flies? And she even elaborates after his inquiring stare, "We didn't come in pairs, we came in quartets. Working solo after that is like working with three limbs missing. Impossible."

He knows that feeling. It's his constant companion. He'd like to attribute the fact that he never got rid of it courtesy of the sudden appearance of Lorne's crew when he was just about to start letting go of his old team but it would be a lie. He's tired of lying. "I thought nothing's impossible for a Marine."

Something weird happens. Red snorts. It's not like she never smiled but she never... she never _smiled_. Every time something akin to a smile or a grin appeared on her face, it looked more like she was just trying not to frown. That snort, though... that was real. "Funny you should say that. My old team leader liked to say that, too."

The smile she's showing now is laced with a hint of pain. Deep, real pain. Like a wound that never really healed. The only reason he can recognize it is because he's got a few of those himself. "Miss him?"

It's almost as if Red is trying not to grit her teeth when she replies, "Like hell. Wasn't even a Marine, that one. But he coulda been." A wistful note enters her voice. It's startling how much she resembles Lorne whenever he mentioned their lost door gunner.

"What was he?" He's genuinely interested. It's been a while since the last time he was.

"Air Force." Alright, that's not what he expected. Must have been one weird base. "Never got to know what he used to fly but he had the most ridiculous call sign ever."

He's pretty sure she exaggerating. No call sign could ever be more ridiculous that Fortune Cookie. He huffs. "I heard a couple that could probably rival it."

Wow. He didn't think someone like Red could bluster like that. It's as if she's like a completely different person. Maybe, he thinks, it's the person she was before whatever caused the limp happened. "No fucking way with this one. Found out about it by accident and we could never stop calling him by it in the oddest moments after that."

Oh, yeah, sure, uh-huh. He's pretty sure he can top off whatever that guy's call sign was. "What the hell was it?"

"Fortune Cookie." Holy. Fucking. Crap. He's pretty sure the coughing fit he just had ranks up in the top three ever in his life. Probably even second, after that one time when Parker… No. Concentrate on the moment. Concentrate on ignoring the slightly worried look on Red's face. "Hey, you okay?"

He clears his throat one last time and then grunts, "Yeah, just... never mind."

For a moment, it looks as if she'd turn tables on him and interrogate him about what the hell that just was. He's ridiculously relieved when she says, "Okay…" with a bit of lingering disbelief in her voice but continues, "Anyway, I gotta… get back to my place."

She gets up and starts walking away with one last nod but after a few steps… she turns around again. "You know, I kept thinking… I don't think you ever stopped being a decent guy. I think you _need_ to be a decent guy." What… is she getting at? And why the hell is it so difficult to look wholly disinterested in what she might have to say? "If you want to… I could get you in touch with a couple of other decent people."

She… _what_? Did she just say… what he thinks she said? Did she just use a code for the resistance, for _Takeover_? He swallows. And says, "Knock yourself out." Hopefully that was casual enough not to make her actually curious.

Thank God she just regards him with another of those searching looks and then simply nods before taking her leave again. He watches her walk away and thinks about a lonely ex-American soldier deep in the Sahara flying rescue missions for Bedouins and missing his door gunner like Red misses her former team leader. He thinks about a lonely ex-retrieval specialist sitting around in Montezuma, Iowa cleaning his gear and missing his two ex-teams. He takes out his phone. There are two calls he has to make.

The first one only gets him an anonymous voicemail recording but that's okay. It's all he needs. He can work with that. And Red said she can get him in touch with people who'll maybe be able to provide more intel.

The second one… He never needed the number Lorne gave him before but he checked if it's still live only recently. He waits until Red is finally out of sight, then dials. When a familiar voice answers from the other end, he skips pleasantries to say, "I might have found something that could be of interest to you." It's actually kind of satisfying to hear a pronounced silence from the other end for at least a minute. This is going to be… interesting, he's sure about that.


	3. Sometime Yesterday

Holiday Fic Request Meme. I admit, not much Leverage in this (and probably the reason why I'll let myself be convinced to write at least another story for this, after all...) but Eliot does play his part and I needed a little closure, at least. We'll see about the rest. Deal?

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><p><strong>Sometime Yesterday<strong>

"_Sometime yesterday,  
>There was another way<br>Of dreaming...  
>But there's another way<br>You don't have to be a hero...  
>God, it's not easy<br>There's a lot to keep you holding  
>On forever..."<em>

_The Radio, "Whatever Gets You Through Today"_

It's weird, he thinks, to be back in the US after five years of desert and sun. It's weird to be somewhere with seasons… with _winter_ and he'd probably cuss his ass off about freezing to death in some backwater town in the middle of nowhere called Elk River, Minnesota if he weren't trying to find the fastest way to what used to be North Memorial Clinic at Elk River Physicians and is now rumored to be a field hospital for the resistance group that calls itself Takeover. He just should have brought the Hawk after all.

Actually, he should have brought his entire crew but there had been holdups and issues with available space on a freelance freighter needing protection from the pirates roaming the Atlantic and in the end they'd just shoved a forged passport and a plane ticket into his hands and basically pushed him onto the tarmac of Mohammed V International Airport in Casablanca, telling him they'd catch up with him as soon as the freighter made it across the Atlantic. He feels like he's been awake ever since Spencer called two weeks ago to tell him he found Laura.

There is such thing as adrenaline, though, which is probably the only thing keeping him sharp enough not to slide too much on the ice on the sidewalk as he's running from the improvised Greyhound station towards the hospital. She's in there, Spence told him that, almost the minute he finally touched American soil again. They were doing some guerilla fighting a few miles further west and she was wounded and God, he needs to see her. He _needs_ to see her.

The urge to see her pushes away the lingering doubt that it's really her and that she actually wants to see him that was brought on by Spencer skirting the issue whenever he asked about that. It even holds up all until he arrives at the hospital entrance that's guarded by a group of young men in ragtag clothes armed heavily with an… interesting array of guns.

Okay, that's just a minor hold up. Spencer gave him the password and he just needs to… whoa! He didn't even get close to tell them because the moment they saw him cross the street, he finds himself eye to eye with half a dozen shot guns, .9mms and even one M16. He _definitely_ should have brought the Hawk. Or at least his P90. The Beretta on his thigh won't do much against that little army. Let's try diplomacy, then. "Hey, guys, uh, I'm on your side and…"

"Stand down, everyone." He's pretty sure he was never so glad to see Spencer as right now. He also tries not to feel embarrassed by having had to be rescued from an outfit like this by Spencer. There had been a time where he would just have shrugged and patiently waited for the men to cave in when being faced with the power of several P90s and men and women highly trained to use them.

But that time is over and now he depends on the men listening to Spencer who isn't even wearing a sidearm, just like back in the desert. Aside from the M240H, Spencer never used or carried a sidearm and it had struck him as odd back in the desert. It's even weirder back in the US were everyone seems to have taken up wearing some kind of weapon or other.

He walks past the guards, conscious of their stares. It takes all his willpower to ignore them. Seems as if months of trying to tell himself that Laura died and then weeks in which he suddenly tentatively allowed himself to hope again took their toll on him. Who would have thought.

So it shouldn't come as a surprise that the first thing he says when he reaches Spencer is, "Where is she?"

Spencer nods toward the door and opens it. "First floor. I'll show you," he says and holds out his hand. What? "The Beretta. They'll boot you out before you can even blink if you walk around here with that thing strapped to your leg."

Right. It's still a hospital after all. Reluctantly, he parts with the weapon that has been his since his earliest days at the SGC and slaps it into Spencer's hand. Spencer leads them over to a footlocker with a heavy lock and a nurse looking like a human version of a dragon to go with it and his Beretta is locked up properly. It feels as if the entire thing takes them a couple of hours.

Then, finally, he's lead through corridors and up the steps, with every available space seeming to be filled with wounded. He doesn't want to think about Laura in such a place, being one of _them_. It gets him after an eternity and much too soon, though. All of a sudden, they're standing in front of a hospital bed, in a corridor and there's someone sitting on it, leaning against the wall behind her, an IV next to her. He swallows.

It comes like a blow to the guts. Hard enough that he nearly doesn't hear Spencer say, "Look who I brought, Red."

There's a small smile blooming on her face, one of those she gave out so rarely, even back at the SGC when things seemed to be infinitely much more normal than now, even after five years. "You know how to cheer up a girl, Eliot."

He takes her in. Her hair's still the same as it always was, red and drawn back from her face. The only difference is that it's not nearly as neat as it used to be. Single strands are framing her tired looking face and he's not sure if she ever looked more beautiful than right now. Hazel eyes are heavy-lidded as if she's finding it hard to stay awake. His gaze travels further down and he finds something dark staining the left side of her t-shirt. Oh God.

"Laura…"

"Alright, I guess I'll see if Parker is back from her run up… Anyway. I'll be back in a few."

"I'm good, Cookie." Most certainly not. There's blood seeping from a wound in her side and she needs an IV and he's pretty sure she's in pain. "I got one clean through the side. Wound's cleaned and bleeding's been staunched. I'm just here because Eliot wouldn't let me go." She smiles again, breaking his heart and putting it back together right away. "At least now know I why."

It's still impossible for him to say something so he simply takes her silent invitation and climbs on the bed, sitting down next to her, leaning against the wall. He takes several deep breaths before he manages a quietly rasped, "I missed you, Laura."

She turns her head, smiling. If she keeps up doing that, they might have to treat him for a heart attack soon. "I missed you, too, Evan."

All he wants to do is hug her and never let her go again, heal her pain, make her whole again, protect her from everyone and everything that might harm her because he failed to do so the first time and never wants to mess it up again. He ends up looking at his fingers and asking quietly, "Why'd you leave us, Laura?"

There's no answer from her at first. Then, barely audible, "I had to." That's bullshit, he wants to tell her. Why would she have to leave them? They were her team, the people she slept with together, fought with, ate with, did _everything_ together with. "I did it for the team, Evan."

He doesn't get it. He doesn't get why she would disappear into the Sahara for the team, what one thing has to do with the other. "That doesn't make any sense at all."

It pains him to see her close her eyes for a very long minute, making her look so exhausted and frail and clearly hurting. "It does, if you know that I was caught by Mauritanian government troops. Who sold me out to _our_ government. Who wanted me to go back to the team and work for them." Usually, in this kind of fight, she'd raise her voice, ending with full out shouting at the end. He'd been there a lot of times. She never actually lowered her voice before. "I was supposed to betray you, Evan."

He never… That… he never knew. He never knew she fought an entire government, just so she wouldn't be forced to sell out her team, and him and he feels bile rising up in the back of his throat. He feels the very primal urge to go out and find whoever did that and who knew what else to her and make them _pay_. But most of all, he wants that sad look disappear from her eyes. He nearly whispers when he says, "We would have protected you, Laura. _I_ would have protected you."

"I know," she says and it's not only her eyes looking sad now, it's her voice carrying a deep, bone-gnawing sadness, too, "that's why I had to leave. I'm sorry, Evan, but I just couldn't go back, knowing I'd be responsible for you getting hurt and killed."

"But that's not how it would have gone. We would have fought them. We would have found a way out of this." He can't believe Laura Cadman of all people would give up so easily. He can't believe staying away from him… _them_ would be easier for her than staying _with_… with _him_. He can't believe he can't stop feeling personally insulted by her decision.

After his little outburst… she's silent. For a long time, and not just an imagined one. It must have been at least ten minutes in which he thought she might have given in to exhaustion and pain after all and just fell asleep when she speaks up again, trying so hard to sound conversationally. "You know… every time we fought, I thought I'd rather kiss than yell at you."

It's another blow to the guts, this time shutting him up effectively. There's so much he wants to say only he doesn't know if it would do any good and most of all _how_ to say it. The implications of what she said… he sees them back in Atlantis, at the SGC as teammates and it seems like that was in another life.

He sees them during the time they formed the plan of going AWOL, how they got to Africa, nights in the desert shivering beneath the infinite blanket of stars they would never travel again, days of frantic relocating after having been spotted, burying friends, making new ones… but never receiving a sign from her other than she's his friend and his subordinate who would follow him through hell and back.

The truth is, he would have gone through hell and back just to keep her with him. He would have done everything to keep her safe. Even if it had meant to stay away from her for the rest of his life. He would have done the same, if it had been his predicament. Because… because…

He leans his head back and closes his eyes. I'm sorry, Laura. You were right to do what you did, Laura. I love you, Laura. That's what he wants to say so badly. Instead his bruised and battered heart only lets him do tentative probing. "I'm not going anywhere, Laura."

He tries to smile but she doesn't answer it. She just says, a little wearily, "But I might."

It confuses him and automatically, his thoughts turn to the blood on her t-shirt and how frighteningly large the stain had looked and how he doesn't want to lose her, never again, now that he found her again. It makes him sit up straight again and argue fiercely, "No, you won't. That's nonsense and you know it. You're not hurt bad enough that..."

"I meant that I might leave this hospital as soon as I can and disappear again. I'm tired of fighting." Oh. That's… well, that makes… sense. It makes sense and it makes him feel ridiculous for jumping at her like that. It makes him feel sorry to cause her to look so weary.

He tries to save her goodwill for him. "In that case... I probably won't be around here much longer, either. If you'll..."

"Yes, I will." What?

How can she know what he even wanted to say? "But you don't even know..."

"Didn't I just say I'm tired of fighting?" Damn. That was stupid. Of course she'd know what he wanted to say. She's Laura Cadman, and she could always see right through him, even better than Keller with her doctor's x-ray look.

Also, and that's even more important, she just… she kind of glued him back together. All the years of telling himself she was just a friend and teammate and the months of hating himself for never telling her she'd been so much more for years just kind of… vanished when she just said she'd take him with her, as soon as she could get away from all of this. He smiles and all by itself his hand seems to slowly inch towards hers. "Yeah, you did. And I am, too."

He could finally make her smile again. He thinks he'll gladly be an idiot and be sorry for it for the rest of his life if it just makes her smile like that. And squeeze his hand like that. "I'm kinda glad about that."

Everything inside of him threatens to explode in a wave of relief and joy and everything he tried to keep in for so long, so the only thing he can manage is, "Yeah, me too," and grinning like an idiot.

She grins back and laces her fingers through his, holding on for dear life. He could sit here with her grinning at him like that and allowing him to touch her and hold her hand for the rest of his life. He could even sit and watch here roll her eyes for that like… "Just kiss me already, you idiot."

What… oh. Kiss her. _Kiss_ her. Yeah, he thinks, why not? Why not give in to the mad urge to sweep her up and kiss her if his life depended on it and hold on to her like he's drowning? Oh, right. Because she got hit by a bullet not too long ago and there's an IV feeding stuff he doesn't want to know about into her system and she'd probably kill him if he caused her more pain than she already is in.

But she'd probably also kill him if he doesn't kiss her _right fucking now_ so he slowly closes the distance between them and touches her lips with his. He's not sure if he just heard her sigh contently but she's responding to his kiss and that's all he needs to bring his hand up and gently bury it in her hair and forget about all the death and destruction around him. It makes him forget about everything but her and the feelings he'd buried for so long.

Even when the kiss breaks because he might spontaneously combust if he keeps it up any longer, he's barely aware of his surroundings because it's _Laura_ and Laura fills his entire mind. Enough that he only marginally registers Spencer appearing in the door again, accompanied by a blonde, both smirking first at him, then at each other.

He's ready to signal them to leave them the hell alone when Laura turns her head in the same direction and then looks back grinning. "Come on, Cookie," she says with that wicked kind of undertone that always preceded some fireworks by her, "let's be good role models and show those two how it's done."

Whatever she meant by that, he's game. "With pleasure," he growls and sets out to kiss her again and he'll be the happiest man on Earth and probably in two galaxies, too if he could only do this for the rest of his life. Kissing her and feeling her replying with the same vigor and tenderness at the same time makes him soar enough that for the first time in _years_ he allows himself to hope.

Hope that everything will be alright in the end, because as he just discovered, it's enough to be with her to make everything alright in the world and since he will never let her go again, everything else will be a piece of cake. Who would have thought it could be that easy, he thinks and smiles against her lips and keeps kissing her. It's the best damn thing that ever happened to him and everything else can just get better now, too. He has never been happier.


End file.
